The Winter Battle in Masuria
and Tauroggen of a Russian force composed of home-defence and frontier-guard formations. They took us by surprise whilst we were still devoting all our attention to events elsewhere.
It is true that there had been rumours of the concentration of enemy forces on the Russian side of the frontier near Memel. But there had been so many rumours, and hitherto they had not materialized. Moreover, there was no reason whatever to expect a Russian attempt in that neighbourhood.
The Russian horde advanced on Memel, which the Landsturm forces abandoned. We heard of this through a telephone girl, who rang us up and gave us this news when the Russians were actually in the Post Omce.
I endeavoured to obtain the Iron Cross of the Second Class for this young girl, Fraulein Erica Rostel. This was not possible, but she afterwards received a gold watch from the State.
The Russians took Tauroggen at the same time and pushed on in the direction of Tilsit. The actions on the other fronts had used up the reserves. The G.O.C. of the 2nd A.C. district had now to send an Ersatz battalion to replace them from Stettin, a proof of how freely we had spent ourselves, and how severely our strength had been taxed by the engagements which had taken place since the beginning of February.
On March 2ist Memel was freed, and on the 22nd three thousand people who had been carried off were recovered from the enemy. The Russians had wrought incredible havoc. Tauroggen fell on March 2Qth. The 6th Cav. Div. were transferred to that district and from that time guarded it from the Lithuanian side of the frontier.
East Prussia was once more free, and henceforth was spared any further enemy invasion. It was now possible to begin the work of reconstruction.
Since the middle of February our Headquarters had been at Lotzen. These were hard days for me until the beginning of April. I had to abandon the hopes I had entertained of making immediate strategical use of the advantages gained by the winter battle. Tactically this battle had been successful, and that filled me with satisfaction. It was nice to know that the